Few suggestions for potential future Hourglass awardees;Journal has new book review editor

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A FEW SUGGESTIONS FOR
POTENTIAL FUTURE HOURGLASS
AWARDEES
by
Richard Vangermeersch
University of Rhode Island
On behalf of Peter McMickle and
myself, I am very happy and honored to
thank the Academy for its awarding us the
1988 Hourglass Award. As our experience
could be helpful to you in perhaps trying
a similar project, I'd like to relate the
milestones of the book, The Origins of a
Great Profession. It is an example of what
might be called "Celebration Accoun­ting."
Since there are many celebrations
coming in the next few years: Columbian
500 in 1992; NAA 75 in 1994; Summa
500 in 1994; and CPA 100 in 1996, for
instance, perhaps the relating of our ex­periences
can alleviate some fears of do­ing
a longer-type project.
In the role of Chairman of The
Academy's Archives Committee, I visited
in 1979 the Rare Book and Manuscript
Library in the Butler Library of Columbia
University to examine the Montgomery
Collection. Robert H. Montgomery, an
American accounting practitioner and
educator of much note, had donated his
rare accounting books and manuscripts to
Columbia in 1926. I noted that Colum­bia
had housed a major exhibit from the
collection for the 50th Anniversary of the
A.I.A. (AICPA) in 1937 and still had
available in inventory two copies of the
souvenir booklet and 1 copy of "A Second
Check List of The Montgomery Library of
Accountancy." These items were purchas­ed
and the idea of redoing the exhibit in
1987 for the AICPA Centennial very
quickly came into mind. Hence, the first
milestone was a spin-off of an Academy
project.
Early 1981 marked the second
milestone—a letter written by myself to
the editor of the Journal of Accountancy
about a 1987 Centennial, including a
repeating of the Columbia Exhibit. The
letter was published in the new Profes­sional
Notes and Letters section in April,
1981. The third milestone was a meeting,
called by Gary Previts, of Academy
members interested in the AICPA
Centennial at the AAA Convention in
1981. The Columbia project remained
alive and was again activated in the latter
part of 1985. The excellent book done for
the 4th World Congress in 1984 was a
tremendous inspiration to me. The AIC­PA
had appointed an AICPA Centennial
Member in Education in early 1984. The
chairman of that committee was James
Don Edwards and included these other
members of The Academy: Sidney David­son,
Gary Previts, and Doyle Williams.
Jim Flynn of the AICPA was its represen­tative
on the Committee. All were very
helpful to the project. By October of 1985
Gary Previts contacted John (Sandy) Bur­ton,
then Dean of Columbia's Graduate
School of Business, about the projected
exhibit. Sandy, also an Academy member,
was also quite supportive.
My fourth milestone was a visit in
November, 1985, to the Rare Books and
Manuscript Library and its Librarian, Ken
Lohf. Mr. Lohf allocated enough exhibit
space for 35 items and I chose a represen­tative
sample of this number from the
1937 Exhibit Book. With the exhibit
items selected, it was then possible in
milestone five to team with Peter
McMickle, the leading scholar of rare
books in accounting and, then unknown
to me, a computer wizard of remarkable
talent. Peter is to be commended for the
inspiring of his students to participate in
6 The Accounting Historians Notebook, Fall, 1988